Joy as mother and son finally reunited

Amid desolation and confusion at a refuge centre for Sinai fire survivors, Ms Flora Njeri still had reason to smile.

She lost everything in her little room at Sinai village in the Monday slum inferno.

But she regained strength at around midday yesterday when she traced her only child, six-year-old Jackson Wairiuko.

Wairiuko is a pre-unit pupil at Bridge Academy, located near the epicentre of the fire.

“I have barely slept since I started looking for him,” said Ms Njeri at Tom Mboya Social Hall on Jogoo Road.

Although she was limping and in pain as she went about looking for her son, she could not afford to seek treatment.

She recalls working at a kiosk near what used to be her home when she heard a loud bang before seeing a ball of fire near her house.

She instinctively turned towards her house located a few metres from a river, but turned back when she met people scorched by fire.

That marked the start of a frantic search for her son, with whom she was reunited yesterday at Tom Mboya Social Hall.

Also fortunate to find her missing grandson was Ms Eunice Waithera, who lives in Lunga Lunga slums.

Ms Waithera, who is a casual worker with an NGO, was told by a neighbour that her grandson had been spotted on TV looking stranded in Doonholm.

After a frantic search, they finally found him in the area.

“He was looking very exhausted when we left him at home but now we know he will be fine,” said Ms Waithera.

For Filbert and Naomi Mambo, all hopes of finding their daughter alive had been dashed.

The couple, whose house was among the hundreds razed by the fire, had added their one-year-old daughter, Faith, to the list of missing persons.

They could not hide their happiness when they were reunited with their third-born child at Land Mawe chief’s camp.